


Alan Tracy: Brave New Worlds

by ThreadbareT



Category: Thunderbirds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23204644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreadbareT/pseuds/ThreadbareT
Summary: Three engineers on Mars are trapped by a rock-viper.Thunderbird 3 has responded.
Kudos: 7





	Alan Tracy: Brave New Worlds

You know what the other guys on my Lunar Missions are doing these days? Rani teaches. She visits schools, and tells young people all the opportunities they will have if they study hard and go to college. Lee retired to Florida, and spends his days ambling around a gold course, talking about the Zen of the perfect drive.  
Yeah. I know. Nice.  
And me? Well they both think I retired young to live on a private island, and sign whatever paperwork the board of trustees tell me will make Tracy Construction and Engineering its next billion.  
That’s who I have to pretend to be, most the time, while the other guys are out stopping a runaway train, or divert a volcano, or… something. I preserve the cover and keep the secret. I hate it. Who wants to be a spy.  
I didn’t study aerospace engineering at Colorado U, work on experimental rockets, visit the moon five times, and help design one of the most intuitive flight control systems in the world to be a spy. I’m an astronaut. I’m an engineer. This is what I love.  
But hey… how many times are people going to need rescuing from space? Right? I wasn’t a leader in my field. I wasn’t even at the front of the pack. I know how hard the guys and gals in the Void work to make sure they don’t need me.  
But here I am. On Mars. Being spat at by… whatever the Hell the thing trying to kill me is.  
“Say Again?” Dad asks.  
I peer around the edge of the boulder, tapping my visor to make up for the shadows in the valley, to punch through the darkness with low light sensors. “Giant rock viper… things. Spitting fire.”  
The creature on the clifftop, rears up and belches a fireball.  
I duck back behind my boulder and feel the impact echo through the stone, as it throws chips, sparks and dust, about me.  
“What do you mean a giant rock viper?” Dad demands. “Spitting fire?”  
I glance at Scott, at the other side of the boulder.  
“Well…” Scott says. “He means exactly what it sounds like.”  
Dad pauses. It’s a very scowl-y pause. “Your options?”  
That’s a good question. The trapped exploration vehicle was deep in the valley. The three engineers setting up the comms-relay for the new settlement were pinned down. If they tried to move, the viper spat fire at them. If we moved it spat fire at us. The shingle and rubble strewn valley between us, made it difficult to cross by foot. You have to fight for every step, or you sink into it.  
“I don’t suppose Virgil can drop us the Mole?” I ask.  
Scott gives me a look. “Interesting, but… no. Pa. We need a way to stop it seeing us.”  
“Or a distraction?” Dad suggests, over the comms. “A decoy?”  
“Or chaff!” I whisper. “It aims at movement…”  
Scott’s eyes light up. “So, we give it all kinds of movement, for it to aim at. Okay…”  
I keep low, under the rock line and crawl back to Three.  
It breaks my heart to hurt her, but needs must. I rip apart a spare space suit for the reflective material, into patches small enough to carry in the thin atmosphere. I rip apart the coffee machine, an air cylinder, some signal flares, and the spare fuel filter, to cobble together a rocket. I don’t need much from it, enough of a kick to take off, and reach a height to match the cliff, enough aerodynamics to make sure it travels in the direction I point it, and doesn’t flip back and come crashing down on my feet. I need to move fast, so the viper blows it apart, and I need to make sure the damage pops the hull in a way that will scatter the chaff, and give the creature a blizzard of movement to fire at.   
I crawl back to the valley mouth, and hurried to set up the rocket, while Scott explains the plan to the trapped engineers. They aren’t too happy, but they don’t have much choice. Time and oxygen are running out.  
I fire the rocket.  
The viper makes a banshee howl that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life, and shoots the missile out the air. The rocket explodes into a cloud of tattered silver material, that swirl in the air. The viper howls again and again, spitting fire and sparks in balls of burning gas.  
The engineers run for their lives, through the valley, ducking low, clawing their way through the shingle and dirt, lumbering painfully slowly towards us.  
They duck for cover as the howling fire fight continues.  
“This way!” Scott commands, in an annoyingly cheerful tone.  
I follow them back to Three.  
If you are wondering if anything is worth this kind of stress… yes. I get to fly home in quite possibly the coolest vehicle ever made.  
For sixteen hours it will be just me, the controls, and a whole lot of Void.


End file.
